days like today...

woke up around 6 30 am to hit some of the best waves ive seen in my life.

saw a wild turkey in our backyard

surfed for about an hour.

ate breakfast

8 30 our ywam crew ran a church service in fingal the community were staying in. were actually staying in the building we had the service in. its basically a huge boathouse, 90 seconds from the ocean, the congregation met upstairs. i spoke for a bit, and jordan Milano, one of my best mates here preached his first ever sermon.

had morning tea at this guy joel's house. (delicious)

played poker for kings. kings is like the ranking system we invented instead of gambling. for example, the winner is highest.... first person out is lowest. so for the rest of the day the winner get first dibs at everything. the 3rd place person is sitting in a nice chair. winner wants the chair. winner gets the chair. kings is in effect until 12pm tonight.

bbq at joels

found a spider the size of my palm about 3 meters from my couch/bed.

seconds at the bbq

back to the beach to surf more. saw dolphins again.

the worship leader from the church shows up... and shows us how unbelievable he is at windsurfing. ps. if youve never seen windsurfing, look it up. unreal.

walked to the pier. and on the pier we saw a hawk soaring around. then watch it nose dive into the water.

went for a run down the beach with matty.

peed in the ocean. and i dont care who you are, its a good feeling.

back for Dinner- TACOS :)

after dinner- met with our zambia outreach team.

played euchre and ate tomato chip sandwiches.

watched the chelsea game streaming with Vidar.

currently on my couch aka bed. done for the night. finishing up this post and about to go to bed

night all.

also this picture is from yesterday. but i forgot to put it for the last post. its a bunch of us at our beach in fingle.

cliff jumping.

so for tribe time tomorrow we plan to go cliff jumping and to a rock slide. and this reminded us of a cliff jumping excursion our crew did over a month a go, but in the excitement the post was lost and forgotten. but thanks to tomorrows tribe time, here it is. written by raf, in rememberence of one awesome day.

A few weeks ago our leader Colin took us all out on an adventure which was cliff jumping. After staying up till 430 in the morning, due to the fact we lost Marcello for an hour at the pub after the soccer game, we were all ready and eager to go. We did pretty good on the ride there and only got lost once, probably because Matty wasn’t driving. When we got there I was blown away. I’m willing to say it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Rocks all over the place, amazing sandy beach, 20 foot waves, the whole deal you see in movies and stuff. Even background music, thanks to Jordan’s super cool lunch pail with a radio in it. The only problem I saw was I didn’t know where we were going jump because there were tons of rocks in the water. So after a nice 10 minute hike in thongs, we got to this tiny beach that kind of looked like an oasis because there were huge rocks all around it and just a tiny pool of water in the middle that was like a 40 feet wide. But right in the middle it was deep enough to jump, and after much debating with myself whether my mom would approve of my jumping off a 12 meter high rock into a not so safe pool,

I figure she probably wouldn’t but I did it anyways. So for the rest of the afternoon all we did was jump off this rock in to a really dodgy pool and eat peanut butter sandwiches but it was the so much fun. Now in a few weeks were heading out to part 2 of our 3 part outreach and going to a place called Byron bay where there just so happens to be an even higher cliff. We’re all psyching ourselves up to do it but a 60 feet seems really scary. Check out YouTube videos for it just type Byron bay cliff jumping.

ALOHA

Surfs up

today was amazing. the marathon road trip is now behind us. and our duties for outreach start tomorrow. today we had a day off. its a beautiful saturday, we went down to the beach, met up with a guy colin knew and he just happend to be a surf instructor. we had borrowed 6 boards from the byron bay ywam dts and headed out to learn to surf!

we did the the whole typical lessons on the beach thing. which was obviously necessary, but hardly exciting. so really i didnt love surfing so as i tried it. however. when we got back from the incredible crystal white beach on the gold coast in queensland. we still had our boards, so we hit the beach that was a 2 minute walk out the back of where were staying. i got up for the first time... and thats when i instantly loved it. we surfed for hours id say. through the leg cramps, chaffed nipples and sun burns. and we loved it.

and you know while we were out there, we came across three dolphins. but really, this place is too beautiful adding a couple dolphins only makes sense.

oh also i got attacked by a shark...

psych. just bailed and got fin smacked by my bored. hopefully makes for a nice scar. cause id say surfing injury off the Gold Coast of Australia qualifies as a cool enough story. anyway im off for now.

ALOHA

Hour 17

Well. The maccas we stopped at DID NOT OFFER FREE WIFI. What an outrage. Soo anyway. Weve made it here. After 25 hours of travels, but the amazing news is, the total beach bum place that were staying, has wireless. So im writing this to you as im about to go to bed. Nothing like sleeping on a couch after sleeping in a car in for 24 hours. Im moving up in the world.

Oh also last night for dinner we had subway. And simply it was amazing. I basically got my sub for free because of the two dollar that i found and colin gave me 5. This brings my “free sub total” up to 3 since being here in aus. The subway family is treating me well down under.

So i guess without further ado i wrote this in the van.

Hour 17.

Right now, im sitting on a suitcase, going about 120 clicks down the freeway through the state of New South Whales. Ive just finally worked up the boredom to dig through the luggage, work my laptop out of my bag. And write this post. (which ill toss up on the interweb soon as we stop at macdons for dinner. – thank god for their free wifi.) right now, at the time im writing this, weve been driving for 17 hours. Since 10 pm last night. All though the night, and up until now. Sleep last night was... difficult to say the least. But by now, ive got at least my 8 hours, even if they came one hour at a time. Its been alot of listening to tunes and for us guys all the classic sports talk. Also, there was a huge scandal in the NRL (national rugby league) by the Melbourne Storm. Which fortunately all you friends at home are oblivious to. Wish I could say the same. But its been mentioned on the radio countless times. Other highlights: Macca’s breakfast (classic) and we stopped for lunch at a park-ish area. Chip and veggie sandwiches, pineapple and strawberries was the menu. Also since we left ive read through 1 Corinthians several times. Ive been minorly obsessed with the book lately and at the moment its my favourite of the bible. I like the first four chapters about the wisdom of god. And of course chapter 13. I like basically that its a letter about how to live successfully in the glory of god. And avoiding the sins that humanity sometimes falls into. Anyway, id recommend reading though if so choose. Moving on... I forgot to say at the stop, I found a two dollar coin on the ground. I was so pumped, more pumped than i probably should have been. But none the less, it brought upon a good mood. Umm up utill now the last thing I feel like mentioning is our code that weve adopted. Several of us are now fully versed in military phonetic code. Romeo Alpha Foxtrot Delta Oscar Sierra Echo November Tango Kilo November Oscar Whisky India Tango

Ps. The just mentioned the storms unfair salary infringement as i typed the last sentence.

Byron Bay

as of Thursday were off again for another Australian outreach trip. this ones to Byron bay. twenty-something hours away. north of Sidney. were going to be gone for 18 days. with potential limited computer access. so this may be my last post for a while. but by the sounds of this outreach, when i do get a chance, there will be much to share.

ok so my plan is to tell you all what i know now. So that yall know whatsup, and where were headed, and what we plan to do. the thing about outreach with ywam, is we kind of just go... knowing that well figure it out in time to do the stuff, but its often last minute. the planning is there, the details just are not. so with out further ado this is what i know.

Byron Bay is a very popular hot spot for backpackers traveling Australia. the beaches get packed with new people every day. offering great opportunities for ministering to people.

Byron Bay is a very "hippie" ish area. weed and drugs are more than common. also giving opportunities for us to offer help to those in need. while were in byron, they have an event going on called Mardi Grass. play on words, but basically what it is is a festival like Mardi gras, except the focus is on weed. they want to legalize it in Australia, and the event basically demonstrates exactly why that should never happen. mainly because its all just awful ruckus. crime and injuries undoubtedly goes up every year. were goin just to show a little love in this place. this is just what ive been told by now. so forsure after seeing it first hand, i can fill in the gaps.

In Byron bay we well be staying at the church of on first speaker, Neville. were all more than excited to see old nev again and looking forward to meeting his church.

In Byron bay are also staying at an Aboriginal community. were going to be having lectures there. And were going to be doing tons of crazy neat stuff as well. colin said they were hoping to take us to hunt stingrays, learn to track wildlife and make spears. were going to catch turkeys and oh ya... go surfing :).

so as they do there, well go by the waves.

im out for now, thats what i know.

but its our day off today. so im going to the beach.

wordlife.

Operation Stitches & Island Night

today was a very busy day.

a very very busy day.

but a good one hah. its Saturday today. and this morning for breakfast we all went to IKEA for the 3 dollar hot meal deal. amazing. and more importantly an appropriate way to start an incredible day.

at 1130. a few of us, raf matty jord jon anna and niina and myself. took off for a community carnival in Collingwood. we were helping with a group called stitched that is a Comunity aid group working against crime and drug use amongst teens in Australia. so basically this event wasnt run by stictches like they do in the past, but stitches was a part of this bigger community event. so this is what the day looked like, i already mentioned ikea... k good.

operation stitches crew

so round 11 we arrived at the park to help set up the tent and booths, popcorn machine and face painting station. these were all set up by operation stitches. they give away scarfs and toques to everyone and just basically try and show love to the community. everything is free. and last but no least we set up a two story inflatable unit. the set up was hectic. i was trying my very best to help, but chris, who dont get me wrong, was the sweetest lady ever, had her way of trying to do it. eventually, i got a word in, and sort of, casually mentioned to her, that maybe i worked at an inflatable company called Niagara Inflatables, and that i sort of did know what i was doing. so that was kind of funny, but we got the unit up and running and gave kids free slides all day long. jon, raf and i worked the top of the slide, and it was hectic as the entire time. literally a constant stream of kids from inflation to deflation. but they loved it, and we got to know some of the kids names and talked with them after and shared food, and that totally made it worth while. (even tho, i swear some of the kids straight up needed discipline... we resisted.)

so good day there. we scored some of the free food. hot dogs, Chinese food and popcorn. i cant fathom a better combination at the moment. so we helped with the pack up and then rushed home for the much anticipated island night.

Island night is a fundraiser that a few of the girls on our dts have been working very hard on, to help raise funds for outreach. we have girls here from samoa, tonga and new zeland. and we set up a night that turned into the raddest cultural experience ive ever had. they decked out the chapel. palm branches and torches everywhere. and we watched them do island dances, and raf and i even participated in one ourselves ha. best part of the night in my opinion was the dinner. the feast was amazing, and the main course. a pig that they cooked underground on hot rocks. in traditional island style. all in all the night was a success, they raised some support for outreach and we all had a blast.

as if the night couldn't get any better, after the dancing and dinner, vidar and i got onto the computer in time to watch Man United win over Man City 1 - 0. in the last minute of extra time. keeping them in serious contention for the title this year, and only 1 point behind chelsea. (man i am really getting into 'football')

generally its safe to say. a busy full day, is a good day

cheers mates

Footy & Fun.

check this out if you dont know what Australian football is. AFL aka. Footy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-PFRrJQtew

Oh forgot to mention, on the Saturday night before we left for Portland we had a great night. Colin bought all of us tickets to the days footy game (AFL). The North Melbourne Kangaroos v. The St. Kilda Saints. The Saints won 147 to 36. Absolute domination by our team, but it was still great fun watching our team with our fellow aussie fans, learning the chants and songs. Such good time watching the footy and learning AFL an amazing sport.

After the Footy we stayed in town to watch they soccer match, United v. Chelsea. We filled up at hungry Jacks and went to the pub to watch the game. And on sat night, 12 30am this pub was packed, and everybody was there to watch the game. Shockingly Chelsea won 2 – 1. By an offside goal that didn’t get called, but thats not worth getting into now. Raf and I bet a jug a milk on the game, so he won. Fair is fair.

OH and a crazy thing, at the pub Raf met this guy named David from home (Waterloo, Ontario) we got talking to him. Told him that were going to uni in waterloo, and he told us that he works at the ice rink (go figure a Canadian working at the ice rink) and we chatted as we watch the game. The end

Sacs

Im a trendsetter. and i dont care if im the only one that knows so. but i had this idea and its just a matter of time before all of Australia catches on. people have backpacks. people have purses. people even have satchels. but only jamie grantis has a sac.

...for now.

Follow theses three simple steps and you can have a sac of your own. and be a part of the trend that is sweeping the nation.

1) buy a laundry bag and dont use it for laundry.

2) throw all your stuff in the sac. clothes, money, food, ect.

3) carry it around like your homeless.

the best thing about sacs is there huge and multi purposeful.

my sac is a gym bag.

my sac is a pillow. (softness varies by contents)

my sac is a beach towel.

you may be called homeless, you may get called Sac-man or Ms. Sac-man. you may even be called santa claus, but its all worth it.

enjoy.

Dalton Lifsey

Dalton was one of our past speakers that I really enjoyed but forgot to mention. I learned a heap from him on a very critical topic - Missions. A lot of his lectures did serious work to prepare us for outreach to africa and even our smaller trips to portland and byron. Dalton gave us a lot of encouragement and tactics on evangelism. Dalton spoke quite a bit about Matthew 28: 18 - 20 and our call to missions as christians. If i can leave it with one last quote that dalton said to us that has really stuck with me was. "God is most Glorified, when we are most satisfied in him" i really liked the way he worded it, and all he had to say. he is like 26 and almost a genius.

dont believe me, hit his link up http://www.daltonlifsey.com/

Kids camp outreach

so at the dts. weve been doing our lecture phase, and quite a few day out reaches, at parks, meeting people, in the city.. whatever. day long type of things. but this past week we traveled to portland victoria. for a week of helping out at a christian kids camp. this was it, the beginning of the outreach phase, the rubber hits the road.

i can honestly say the week was amazing. but hectic all the while. it was a camp for kids between 13 - 17. and our role was camp counselor type, and activity leaders. as well raf was in charge of tribe time and i oversaw activities.

most of the boys were younger. so like 13. which ment - they were 13 year old boys. together in a room. with no parent. oh Glory.

Raf, matty, jordo and I volunteered to sleep in the room with the boys. which only ment we had some insane hilarious talks at night times and dumps loads of knowledge and wisdom into their heads. also it it shocking how your forget what it was like to have the brain of a pre puberty teenager. you remember... when it made more sense to tell austin to tell mary ella to tell nadia that you like her. things of that nature was a interesting reminder.

another interesting fact about the kids was they like to ask questions. wait. lemme correct myself they feel as if they need to ask questions. wait. lemme correct myself. they ABSOLUTELY ALWAYS HAVE A QUESTION TO ASK REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES. now let me elaborate on that, all the kids were great. some actually amazing. but there was one, well call him he Izzy. literally asked me 90 questions a day. i was his group leader so i would frequently get questions of this nature...

"Izzy: Oi, James (cause they all called me james), what are we doing right now?

Jamie: check your schedule buddy.

Izzy: it says lunch, whats after that?

Jamie: check the schedule man

Izzy: it says free time, can i shower?

Jamie: yep if you want izz.

Izzy: whats after free time?

Jamie: check your schedule...."

one other interaction that stands out in my mind was..

ok this is at 6:30 in the morning when i was waking up.

"Izzy: Oi, James?

Me: yes izzy?

Izzy: Why are you awake, and mattys still asleep, and raf woke up 5 minutes ago?"

seriously. this was common.

but kids will be kids and there was so much awesome that came from the week.

ive never had such consistently awesome worship times for a week straight. which is leading me to believe if i want to feel gods presence vividly. and fun way would be to find 50 or so younger teenagers and get the preforming musical group from the YWAM ship tour and set up in a chapel with a huge view of the ocean out the second story window.

seriously the week was amazing. so much more to say about it than i can add to a single blog post. but ill finish with one last memory.

the guy who was organizing the camp was a rather large Aussie man named Carl. and on the last night, once all the campers were already gone, he was talking to us all in the kitchen. he was semi giving a speech. and it was incredibly touching. in his words, working with us was one of the most rewarding experiences hes ever had, and we were amazing, and they will be talking about the week in heaven. and he would do that for the rest of his life if he could. and his eyes were honestly tearing. im not trying to brag now about my ywam team. but i was just super moved by how emotional this guys was about how proud he was of us. and hence why im sharing it with yall :)

all in all. haveing camp 90 seconds from the ocean was rad. the campers were amazing. and we could honestly see the change in them from just one week. some especially much! and i was quite and exceptional kick off to outreach. approx 1 months till africa.

cheers.

ps. this is the ship.

Great Ocean Road [Trip]

If youve been following the blog or if weve talked to you in the past little while you would most likely know that raf and I were in Portland for the last week running a kids camp as part of our Australian outreach. Portland is about 7 hours from Melbourne just about 450km down the coast. just enough distance to be classified as a road trip. And an amazing one at that! If you’ve ever heard about the Great Ocean Road, ive already said enough. But if you haven’t heard here are some picture to portray a glimpse of the awesomeness. Furthermore, colin spotted a Koala in a tree so we pulled the vans over and got out to see several koala’s eating and sleeping in trees.

Also, on the way down to Portland we parked along the beach to play soccer evangelize and eat lunch. And as if that wasn’t enough we stopped at the 12 apostle’s national park. Which if you haven’t heard of it is this...

And that was amazing. By this time all the snacks that were at my feet were now consumed in time for us to arrive and Bayview Christian College. The site for our weeks camp.

Portland Outreach

On April 5^th we leave for one week on an outreach trip. We are going to Portland, Victoria which is a coastal port city. About 7 hours away from Melbourne, where I currently am. In Portland were going to be running a kids camp. At this building that is literally a 90 second walk from the ocean. Super pumped for that. And also really excited because when they explain this camp it is shaping up to look a lot like crossroads and grade retreats. In Australia they do things a little differently and the kids have holidays now thats why we can do this, its virtually summer camp – in april.

Also if you know anything about the YWAM's Australia – PNG ship tour, (its the thing Steph did her outreach with) and it is docked in Portland this week so we will be working along side the ship as we do the camp. It looking like a promising week and a great way to kick off outreach! But for now, im getting some sleep because we have a 7 hour drive ahead of us.

Night